[Level increased. Level has risen from 12 to 14.]
-Current remaining skill points: 4
I had hunted a monster far higher than my own level, and on top of that, the bonus experience points from the event were added, so my level rose by two all at once.
They had said I could get points back if I deleted a skill.
Since I could receive a refund, I should use them without feeling burdened.
Nadan had also told me to spend them freely.
-3 skill points paid to raise Stabilizer’s level.
-Stabilizer’s skill level has risen from 15 to 20.
-Stabilizer’s penetrating power greatly increased.
After raising the skill level, I told Nadan why my penetrating power had increased greatly.
Nadan opened his eyelids even wider, though they were already spread nearly to their limit.
“Skill level 20? But your body is level 14?”
“I received a perk that makes it rise fivefold each time I raise a skill level.”
“I did expect there was some kind of skill-level-related perk from that extraordinary penetrating power, but... fivefold is beyond what I imagined. But are you sure it is all right to tell me the details of your perk?”
“It is already obvious that I benefited from a perk, so if I vaguely gloss over it here, would that not be even more suspicious?”
“Hahaha! Thank you for not breaking my fantasy about dimension travelers.”
I smiled faintly and spoke.
“And I have confidence in my eye for people. You are not the kind of person who would go around lightly blabbing about it, Mr. Nadan.”
Nadan blinked at me, then looked into the air and grew bashful.
“You high-level bastard. If you say something like that, I have no choice but to lock my mouth shut for the sake of my own honor.”
“By the way, what should we do with the Ghost Tiger afterward? If we try to bury that huge body, we will have to dig a pit all night.”
“When it is hard to bury something, we use the method of burning it away. Go around the area and gather firewood. In the meantime, I will take out the Ghost Tiger Core.”
Inside the Ghost Tiger’s body was a special part, and its official name was the Ghost Tiger Core.
The Ghost Tiger Core was treated as a special material, and by processing the core, armor imbued with the Stealth Skill could be made.
Since it was armor that could enter a stealth state when needed, it was treated as a luxury item, and the price was high.
The problem, however, was that one needed one hundred Ghost Tiger Cores in order to make armor.
Nadan drew his knife and went down below the hill.
“Night will fall soon. It looks like we will have to sleep outdoors around here tonight, so while you are picking up firewood, gather what we will use at night too.”
I answered that I understood and went down the hill by a different route from Nadan.
The sunset was at its end, and the sky, where scarlet and navy had formed a gradation, was gradually taking on a greater share of navy.
The forest floor was lined with dry branches and pinecones, so gathering firewood to feed the flames was not difficult.
It did not take long until both my arms were full of firewood.
Just as I thought this should be enough and was about to return.
In the scenery where birch trees stood sparsely, a single human figure flickered.
Something in the shape of a person was walking toward where I was.
Nadan?
No.
It was too thin to be Nadan.
Its height was in the early 170-centimeter range.
Its legs were long, its waist was thin, and its shoulder line was rounded.
The silhouette seen from a distance looked like an unusually slender man, or like a woman with a moderate amount of muscle.
A moment later, an indicator appeared that allowed me to guess the other party’s identity.
In the night forest, amid that thick darkness, golden eyes flashed.
Suddenly, the warning Nadan had given me came to mind.
‘If you happen to encounter a woman with black hair and golden eyes, run without looking back.’
I had been told to run, but my instincts were strongly warning me to launch a preemptive attack.
If I was going to be caught even if I ran, I would open a way out with an attack.
I deliberately threw aside the firewood held in my arms with a loud clatter, gripped the Deros Bow with both hands, and nocked an arrow to the string.
Every movement was completed in a single breath.
It was thanks to the three-dimensional effect of repeated practice until now, the support of the package that raised my adaptability, and my concentration sharpened keenly with thrill as its whetstone.
When I drew the bowstring, a dotted line appeared in my vision and stretched long toward the front.
It was the expected trajectory showing how the arrow would fly if I released the bowstring right away.
The trajectory was almost perfectly straight, and at the end of the trajectory was the unidentified creature.
Arrow loaded... fire!
TWANG—!
The moment the arrow left the bowstring, the shape of the silhouette changed.
From the silhouette of a human, into the silhouette of a beast.
The part I had aimed at was where a human heart would be, but as the opponent transformed into a four-legged beast, the height of its body changed.
The arrow moved faithfully along the expected trajectory and passed over the beast’s back.
The beast ran toward me and let out a short roar.
“GRRROAR!”
When the beast emerged from the darkness and stepped under the moonlight, I could confirm its appearance with my own eyes.
It had the form of a tiger with black stripes on a yellowish base.
It was the spitting image of the Ghost Tiger I had hunted earlier.
The only difference, if anything, was that the Ghost Tiger’s pupils had been black mixed with brown, whereas the one I had encountered now had golden pupils.
I adjusted my breathing and loaded the next arrow.
Stay calm.
The moment when Nadan first showed me a hunting demonstration crossed my mind.
Even though a monster had been closing the distance from the front, he had calmly hit its vital point.
The cool-headed shot born from his tough mental strength had been deeply impressive.
If Nadan could do it, I should be able to do it too.
“Grrrr.”
The monster that had been charging in let out a thick growl.
The monster’s form blurred.
It was fully using the Ghost Tiger’s Stealth Skill that Nadan had mentioned.
I shot the arrow before the Ghost Tiger completely disappeared.
TWANG—!
Since the distance had narrowed, the time it took to reach the target was noticeably shorter than my previous shot.
The monster tried to leap away and dodge, but the arrow had already lodged in its ankle.
THUNK!
Despite having an arrow embedded in its ankle, the monster instead leaped high and tried to pounce on me.
“GRRROOOAR!”
Just then, a strong presence came from the side, and Nadan threw himself at me, wrapped me in his arms, and rolled roughly.
“Jo Seong-jin!”
We rolled several times across the ground, and the monster landed on the spot where I had been standing until just before.
Nadan let go of me and used the centrifugal force created from rolling on the ground as it was, rising smoothly without much effort.
“You reckless bastard, not knowing your own life is precious.”
I slowly gathered myself and rose, lifting the corners of my mouth in a grin.
“That is because I had something to rely on.”
I had noticed long ago that Nadan was running toward me, and if things really went wrong, I had been planning to ask to be sent back to my original world right before I was attacked.
I had not just one insurance policy, but several, so I thought it would be all right to try something a little reckless.
As a result, it had been the right choice too.
I hooked an arrow onto the bowstring and asked.
“What is that monster? You are not going to tell me that Ghost Tigers have the ability to turn into humans, are you?”
“It is the opposite. That thing has the ability to turn into Ghost Tigers. To be precise, you can think of it as having the ability to transform into feline monsters it has hunted.”
“A monster that defeats monsters and absorbs their abilities... That is unusual.”
“It would be. That thing was originally human.”
For a moment, I nearly dropped the bow in my hand.
Nadan had clearly said it.
If I encountered a “woman” with black hair and golden eyes, I should run.
He had referred to her as if referring to a human because she was not an individual rooted in monsters, but an individual rooted in humanity.
“Could it be......”
“It is as you guessed. That thing is a human who ate monster meat and underwent monsterization... Heh, that was a slip of the tongue. I will correct it. To be precise, she was human.”
Sorrow seeped from his snort.
As if there were circumstances that required courage to put into words.
Instead of digging deeply, I stepped back and stayed alert in every direction.
“Just tell me whether we may hunt her or not.”
“We have to if we want to survive. Be careful. She has entered a stealth state. We do not know when or where she will attack, so keep your distance from me.”
Nadan put space between himself and me.
The Ghost Tiger’s Stealth Skill was released at the same time as an attack, so if we became the ones being attacked, we decided to prioritize evasion.
If one person evaded, the other would intercept the monster.
It was a method weighted toward defense, but there was a reason for it.
Without lowering my guard, I spoke.
“I hit the monster’s ankle with an arrow.”
“I saw it too. But she is tougher than she looks. It will take time for the Deros Bow’s effect to work.”
Time was on our side.
If the monster wasted time looking for an opening, that was fine in its own way. If she attacked rashly, that was also what we wanted.
One second, two seconds, three seconds... ten seconds, eleven seconds, twelve seconds......
Time continued to pass, but the monster showed no sign of attacking.
It should clearly have been an advantageous situation, but strangely, I felt a sense that something was off.
The first person to realize the identity of that sense of wrongness was Nadan.
Nadan loosened the bowstring and shouted.
“Damn it! I overlooked a third option!”
Coincidentally, I had just arrived at the idea of the third option Nadan had mentioned.
“She ran away using the fact that she was in a stealth state.”
“The mistake began with assuming she would not know about the paralysis skill. She had been watching us from the forest entrance!”
“If she withdrew on her own, that is good in its own way.”
This Cat Forest exploration was focused on my journey, after all.
For me, it was to secure experience and exploration points. For Nadan, it was to act as a forest keeper while helping me wander the forest safely.
Monster hunting was only part of the experience, and monster hunting itself was absolutely not the main purpose.
It would be one thing if this were broad daylight.
There was no reason to force ourselves to chase her in the middle of the night.
But Nadan grew anxious, like someone being mentally chased, then lowered his posture and examined the traces left on the ground.
“I am sorry, but I absolutely have to catch her. If we lose her this time, the perfect chance to hunt her may never come again.”
It seemed to be a personal circumstance, so I had kept from asking, but at this moment, I needed to hear the reason.
“Why are you so obsessed with her?”
Nadan stopped examining the ground, sprang to his feet, and stared straight ahead.
“This way, is it?”
Then, without giving me even a single glance, he ran in the direction the monster had fled.
I could not simply stay still, so I did chase after Nadan, but it was impossible to follow him through the forest.
A full-speed sprint by someone who had lived his whole life in the forest.
It was night on top of that.
The distance between Nadan and me grew wider and wider, and soon Nadan entered a place beyond my field of vision.
I called Nadan, but my voice never reached him and merely wandered through the empty darkness.
***
How long had he run?
Nadan stopped in front of a clearing where moonlight fell.
Inside the clearing, a monster in the form of a Ghost Tiger stood motionless.
From the way it stood still without even twitching, he gained certainty.
Its body is paralyzed!
It had already been ten minutes since the pursuit began.
That was more than enough time for the Deros Bow’s paralysis effect to take hold.
Using the grass as cover, Nadan placed one knee against the ground.
Then he nocked an arrow to the bowstring and took a silent deep breath.
‘At last, I can put an end to this long ill-fated bond with you.’
He did not let his guard down even slightly.
The proof was that even now, when he was certain the monster was paralyzed, he was making thorough use of cover so the monster would not recognize his presence.
The moment he drew the bowstring and aimed at the monster.
The monster suddenly whipped its body around and approached the grass where Nadan was with dazzling zigzag movements.
Nadan inhaled sharply in shock.
“It was paraly... not paralyzed?”
Once something was paralyzed, it was normal for it to be unable to move for quite a while.
Then why could she move?
For an instant, Nadan’s gaze reached the monster’s right foreleg.
The rest of its body was that of a Ghost Tiger, but only the monster’s right foreleg was different.
An object like a turtle’s shell covered its right foreleg up to the ankle.
And the arrow was embedded in that shell.
“So she had transformed only her right foreleg into that of a monster specialized in defense!”
Apparently, the arrowhead had only embedded deeply in the shell and had not managed to reach the monster’s flesh.
A precise calculation of attack power.
The monster had foreseen it.
That if she pretended to flee because she was afraid of being paralyzed, the two humans would split up.
In his urgency, Nadan hurriedly released the bowstring.
TWANG—!
By the time the arrow Nadan shot rushed forward, the monster had already slipped out of the arrow’s trajectory.
While he urgently fumbled at his quiver to load the next arrow.
The monster, which had closed the distance before he knew it, raised its left foreleg.
“Grrrr!”
Sharp claws jutted out between its toes.
The moonlight reflected on the surface of the claws flashed so viciously it hurt the eyes.
“Damn it.”
The next moment, the monster’s left foreleg struck Nadan’s chest, and with the sound of his chest guard being crushed, Nadan’s body was flung far backward.
CRUNCH—!